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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A CONCISE STATEMENT 



OP THE 



VIEWS AND PRACTICES 



OF THE 



Society of Friejs^ds, 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN FKIENDS' MEETING 

HOUSE, WEST CHESTER, PENNA., 

EIGHTH MONTH, 1888. 



By JOHN J. CORNELL. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

friends' book association, 

1500 Race Street, 

1889. 



A CONCISE STATEMENT 



OF THE 



VIEWS AND PRACTICES 



OF THE 



Society of Friends, 






.N ADDRESS DELIVERED IN FRIENDS' MEETING 

HOUSE, WEST CHESTER, PENNA., 

EIGHTH MONTH, 188S. 



By JOHN J. CORNEL L^^^^.-'^jFCO/v^ 






PHILAPELPHIA : 

friends' book association, 

1500 Race Street, 

1880. 



3^ 






Copyright 1888, by 
Friends' Book Association of Philadelphia. 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 028855 




VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF THE 
SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 



In the preparation of this paper, while I shall 
endeavor to give as clearly as I am able my under- 
standing of the views of that branch of the Society 
of Friends with which I am affiliated, and the reasons 
for entertaining them, I wish to be distinctly under- 
stood that no one is to be held responsible but myself 
for what the paper contains. 

In the formation of our religious ideas and our 
conception of Truth, it is very important that we 
start from a solid or right basis, that our super- 
structure may be not only beautiful in proportion 
and finish, but capable of enduring whatever of 
assaults may be made upon it. And, therefore, 
as our conceptions of the nature and character of 
God must necessarily lie at the foundation of our 
religious structure, it becomes important that those 
conceptions be such that we may build thereon, so 



4 VIEWS AND I^RACTICES OF 

that nothing can shake our faith in Him, and no 
assault upon our religious opinions create in us a 
doubt ; therefore I deem it important to give our 
views concerning God. 

We read in the Scriptures of Truth that God is 
Love, and I think the careful student of the teachings 
of Jesus cannot fail to discover that He emphasizes 
this idea throughout. But what is the nature of this 
love that so fully describes the character and nature 
of God as regards His relations to man as an im- 
mortal being? for it is in this sense it appears to me 
we are to consider that nature and character. All 
shades of religious believers acknowledge Him to be 
the Creator of all things, both material and spiritual; 
and hence for the purpose of this paper we will con- 
fiue our definition of His character and nature to 
His relations with man as a spiritual being. Love 
is a term we apply to those promptings which move 
us to act unselfishly for the good of others, and also 
to that which prompts us to regard with nearer feel- 
ings those who thus act towards us, as for instance 
the mother so loves her child that she will make any 
amount of- sacrifice in her power for what she thinks 
will best promote the good or pleasure of the child ; 
and the child loves the mother because of the recep- 
tion from her of those things which contribute to its 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 

support and enjoyment, and in turn when it becomes 
old enough to comprehend what the mother has done 
and is doing, true love prompts the child to as un- 
selfishly seek the higher or best interest of the 
mother, and this we would term reciprocal love. 
In this unselfish love of the mother for her child, no 
amount of disobedience on the part of the child, no 
waywardness, or unappreciation of the sacrifice the 
mother may be making, has the eflTect to diminish the 
love of the true mother, and it is in this sense I 
would present to you the idea that " God is Love ;" 
that He is continually giving forth of His wisdom. 
His power, and His Love, for the government, direc- 
tion, and sustenance of the spiritual man he has 
created, and that it makes no difference to Him, in 
so far as to the continued emanation of Himself as 
Love, whether man be obedient or not. He is un- 
changeably the same, yesterday, to-day and forever, 
and consequently is never and has never been angry 
with man because of man's transgression of laws He 
has established. The results of transgression of law 
are to deprive man of the enjoyments found in obe- 
dience to it, and hence to make him unhappy, 
which has been ascribed by some scripture writers, 
and continues to be the thought of the masses to-day, 
to the anger of God, when God has not in the slight- 



6 VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF 

est degree changed His attitude towards man, but 
man has changed his attitude towards God. Again, 
one of the Apostles describes God as Light, and in 
Him is no darkness at all. This embraces the idea 
that through Him as light is revealed to man such a 
knowledge of Him, and His laws, as are essential for 
man to know and obey, that he may so walk in unison 
with God as Love ; that he may return that love in 
the same reciprocal manner as the child, when obe- 
dient to parental teachings and love, loves the parent, 
and also that in this relation God is unchangeable, 
there being in Him no darkness at all. There is not 
nor has there been any period of time since the exist- 
ence of man as a spiritual being, when God has not, 
or does not reveal to man such a knowledge of his 
duty as would, if obeyed, lead him into that true 
happiness w^hich is the consequent of that reciprocal 
love from God to him, and from him to God. 

CHRIST THE SAVIOUR. 

We will next consider who and what is the Christ 
or the Saviour of man. The attention of the pro- 
fessed religious world is called to Jesus of Nazar- 
eth as the Saviour, and that in his death upon the 
cross on Calvary a way was opened whereby God 
became reconciled to man, and thus the alienation 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 7 

brought about by man's fall was abrogated. Friends 
regard this whole theory as entirely and utterly in- 
consistent with the nature and character of God as 
above described, first, because the fall of man did not, 
nor could not, make God angry with man, its results 
only falling upon the man, so as to deprive him of the 
enjoyments which would have been his had he been 
obedient to the law given him, and which enjoyments 
were still within his reach whenever he truly repent- 
ed of his error, and became obedient to the laws of 
his God. Second, because as God is unchangeable, so 
if He be Love, He is always Love, and could not 
therefore be hjving and angry at the same time. It 
therefore did not need the sacrifice of Jesus to recon- 
cile God to man. And hence Jesus was not, nor is 
not, the saviour of men. And when I speak of Jesus, 
I refer to the manhood which walked in Judea, or - 
what is commonly known as the historic Christ. 
What then, I hear the inquiry, is the Christ — that is, 
the Saviour ? To which I answer, It is that attribute 
of God through and by which man is made conscious 
of such laws and commands as God deems best for 
him to obey, — that which impresses the spirit of the 
man, and through that impression gives the man the 
knowledge of what is right and what is wrong for 
him. 



6 VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF 

This Christ has never been separated from God, 
was never crucified by man, could not be put to death 
by him, for it is as unchangeable as God ; and this 
Christ was in the beginning with God, and was God. 
It is called the Word, the Light, the Grace, the Pow- 
er and Wisdom of God. It was through this Christ 
that God gave our first parents the law in the garden, 
through this Christ he condemned Cain, directed Abra- 
ham, unfolded the things present and future to the 
prophets, and it was the same Christ which dwelt in 
the man Jesus in its fullness to enable him to accom- 
plish the great work for which he was sent into the 
world, which was to bear witness to the truth, that a 
humanity such as ours, tempted in all points as we 
are, could live a life without sin in the Divine sight, 
by being perfectly obedient in all things to the direc- 
tions of this Christ. Had Jesus been the Saviour, he 
would not have said to his chosen disciples, " It is 
expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not 
away the comforter will not come, but if I go away I 
will pray the Father, and he shall send you another 
comforter, even the spirit of Truth, which shall 
guide you into all truth.'' Had Jesus been given the 
power to save, he could have led them into all truth, 
but the facts were, the disciples were depending upon 
the outward manifestation, and overlooking the 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 9 

Christ in them : this was in direct opposition to 
the example Jesus sought to give them, and hence it 
was necessary that the manhood should be removed, 
that their dependence might be upon the true Christ 
in them, as their and our Saviour. 

SALVATION. 

Man's salvation from the commission of sin, if the 
above premises be true, consists in obedience to such 
laws as God in his love for man reveals to him 
through the Christ, as above described ; for it must 
be self-evident to every unprejudiced reflecting mind, 
that the man who implicitly obeys what he under- 
stands God requires of him will be saved from trans- 
gression, and therefore from alienation from God, 
and necessarily lives in harmony with Him, and can- 
not be otherwise than as happy as the vicissitudes of 
human life will admit, and, at the same time, will find 
immunity from the consequences of the commission 
of sin. The true work of salvation then lies in the 
preservation of man from the commission of sin, 
rather than in the pardon from the consequences 
of committed sin, which is the theory generally held 
by those who place their faith in the crucifixion of 
Jesus as a means of reconciling God to man, so as to 
exempt them from the consequences of man's fall. 



10 VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF 

and which from my staDdpoint is entirely inconsistent 
with the thought of God as wholly Love. 

RESTORATION. 

I use this term in contradistinction to the term Re- 
demption from sin, because it more truly expresses 
the relationship established between man and God, 
and is in more full accord with the basis herein 
presented. Redemption means that we are ran- 
somed from the thraldom of sin by a price paid, or an 
offering made by another for us, and is in strict ac- 
cordance with the theory alluded to, as held by those 
who style themselves the Evangelical Church ; while 
restoration is a term in more strict agreement with 
the relation in which we stand to God, from the 
premises I have taken. 

We find in the account of the casting of our first 
parents from the Garden, as related in Genesis, that 
after they were driven out, there was placed at the 
east gate of the garden a flaming sword which turned 
every way to guard the entrance to the tree of life, 
which stood in the midst of the garden. 

Understanding this as I do, to be a figure de- 
signed to present the way by which they and we 
might return again to their and our primordial 
estate, this flaming sword represents to me the spirit 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 11 

or the Christ of God, by whose direction, and under 
whose guidance, we are led to a true repentance, in 
which the will we have exercised, that led us to dis- 
obey the Divine commands, becomes slain as by the 
flaming sword, and we cease to do evil, and become 
so humbled that we strive to do the right. Through 
this course of life we may be again restored to har- 
mony and acceptance with God. The only price 
paid for which is the choice on our part to obey the 
directions of the Christ or grace of God within us, 
by which we will be led to a true amendment of life, 
and a re-acceptance with God, and therefore restored 
to our former or first condition in which we were be- 
fore we sinned. And these same means of restoration 
were given to our first parents, and from my stand- 
point are the only means of restoration God has ever 
established ; therefore, the idea that a God of Love, 
all-wise and all-powerful, should have had to wait 
thousands of years before perfecting a plan by which 
he might become reconciled to man, seems at once in- 
consistent, and wholly unnecessary. 

These then constitute the basal principles upon 
which man may and ought to rear his religious 
structure, to insure him present and eternal happi- 
ness, and such as I understand to be in accord with the 
general idea as held by our branch of the Society of 



12 VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF 

Friends. We will, therefore, turn to the consideration 
of the reasons for our mode of worship, and why we 
do not accept the forms adopted by the so-called 
Evangelical churches. 

SILENT WORSHIP. 

Inasmuch as true worship consists in obedience 
to the will of God, as that will is unfolded to each 
individual soul, and not merely in the observance of 
forms and ceremonies which men have adopted, and 
which many seem to regard so essential (though lam 
fully aware that God may, and does use these forms 
and ceremonies to reach people by adapting his laws 
to meet every possible condition of the human 
family), it follows, that that condition in whirh man 
can most clearly comprehend what that will is, 
should be adopted by him in his mingling for social 
worship, and therefore inasmuch as Christ is a 
spirit, and the revelations of God's will through 
Christ must be made to the spiritual understanding 
of the man, so a condition of quiet, in which nothing 
of an outward nature can attract or distract the at- 
tention, is the most favorable for an understanding of 
what God would unfold as the lesson or duty of the 
hour, hence Friends have adopted the mode of 
meeting in quiet, or without any set form, or per- 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 13 

forraaDce to occupy the attention in their meetings 
for worship, so that each and every mind may have 
the opportunity, if they will use it, for a quiet intro- 
version of spirit with the Christ, the Saviour within 
them, and if all who thus assemble were in a proper 
preparation for such a communion, it would supersede 
the need of any vocal testimony ; the Lord himself 
would preach to the satisfying of every heart. But 
amid the vicissitudes of human life, and the varied con- 
ditions of human experience, few bodies of professors 
ever gather together in which all of them are in a 
condition to hold this perfect communion with the 
spirit, and hence it becomes necessary, in the direc- 
tions of the Divine wisdom, that an instrument shall 
be used to counsel and encourage the different con- 
ditions that may be assembled, to come to the one true 
source of knowledge and power, which is able to 
direct the movements of man so as to enable him to 
receive the highest happiness he is capable of appre- 
ciating, or to encourage them to persevere amid that 
which seems adverse, to obtain the blessings of God, 
or it may be the instrument may be called to remove 
doubts that are resting in some minds, or to furnish 
others some thought which may lead them under 
God to a greater purity of life, and so all will be so 
edified, that the gathering will prove an incentive in 



14 VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF 

greater dedication of life towards the attainment of 
a true salvation. 

THE MINISTRY. 

Such a ministry must receive its call and its 
qualification from the direct revelation of the D.vine 
mind concerning the needs of those assembled at the 
time, and coupled with this revelation, the command 
that it is for them, at that time, to speak such words 
of counsel and encouragement, or open the truth so 
as to remove the doubts, or impart new ideas of the 
relationship of God to man. This involves such a 
consecration of heart upon the part of the minister, 
that his or her spiritual eye and ear may be open to 
receive the impressions which are made upon them 
by this spiritual teacher, and be able to distinguish 
whether these impressions are for themselves alone, or 
are to be shared with others, and this coupled with 
such a dedication that the anxiety of the human to 
be active is kept under control, so that there may be 
a clear discernment between the word of command 
and the imagination of the human. While Friends 
recognize the necessity of taking advantage of all 
proper means for a liberal education, by the culture 
of the intellectual powers, not only in the reception 
of truth as it is found either in nature or art, in the 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 15 

scientific or religious investigations, but in the ability 
to impart to others of that which we have culled and 
stored, yet we regard it as entirely unnecessary that 
men should pursue a course of study to especially fit 
them for the ministry of the Gospel of Christ, which 
is the power of God unto salvation ; for no amount of 
time nor study can qualify a man whom God has not 
called to the work, to speak to the special needs of an 
assembled congregation, who are each earnestly de- 
sirous for such a salvation as has been presented in 
this paper. While such men may be qualified to 
expound the theories and doctrine which they have 
been taught, and while they may take a text of 
scripture and give their views as to its bearing, upon 
doctrines and dogmas they have learned, unless there 
has been in their past lives a practical experience in 
obedience to the requirings of God as revealed to 
their inner nature, and a comprehension of the con- 
dition of those to whom they speak, as that condition 
is revealed to them by the spirit of God, they cannot 
be qualified to preach that Gospel which is the power 
of God unto salvation. If then to preach that Gos- 
pel to edification requires this immediate qualifica- 
tion, there can be no real need of special instruc- 
tion for the work of the ministry in the schools ; and 
indeed, such an instruction largely proves a hin- 



16 VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF 

drance, for its tendency is to induce the man to de- 
pend upon his learning, instead of upon the immed- 
iate qualification of the spirit. Hence the Society of 
Friends holds that God will call, qualify, and send 
forth such instruments as may be needed to reach the 
conditions of the assemblies met to worship him in 
accordance with their needs, if there be on their 
part a true truth and dependence upon Him. And 
as this call will be given to those who will be qualified 
as they are submissive to His directions, and as no 
further time is necessary to devote to the prepara- 
tion than should be given for the acquirement of an 
education to fit for the secular pursuits of life, so 
there will be no necessity of their looking to man for 
pecuniary reward for a service required of them by 
the Divine Spirit, and for which that Spirit has es- 
pecially fitted them. I am not insensible to the fact 
that there are many communications in the meetings 
of Friends that are not edifying, but these arise from 
the individual taking human imagination for a 
Divine command, and thus give away to others, that 
which was meant more especially for themselves ; but 
this by no means disproves the fact that a rightly 
qualified testimony will tend to edify those assembled, 
and to deepen their trust in and dependence on this 
spiritual communion with the Father. In such a 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 17 

qualificatioD, as above noted, the Lord knows no sex, 
as male and female are one in Christ. So the gift 
of the ministry may be given to one as well as the 
other, and under a true qualification for the ministry 
a female may speak to the edification, comfort, en- 
couragement, or instruction of an audience, as well 
as a male, and so the Society of Friends, recognizing 
this truth, have ever accorded to the woman the 
right to speak in their meetings of worship, and 
acknowledged her gifts to have been conferred by 
the Diviue Spirit. 

THE SCRIPTURES, OR BIBLE. 

The Society of Friends has ever held these writ- 
ings to be of inestimable value for what they them- 
selves claim to be valuable, " for counsel, for reproof, 
for instruction , for doctrine, that the man of God may be 
thoroughly furnished unto all good works ; " but we do 
not regard them as our authority, either for action in 
private life, or for our work in a religious life, but 
hold them secondary to the immediate revelations of 
the Divine Spirit, or the Christ within us, and as 
corroborative evidence of what that revelation un- 
folds or requires. We hold they were written from 
the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, but that inspira- 
tion was expressed in the language of those to whom 



18 VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF 

it was imparted, and was more especially adapted to the 
condition of the human family at the time they were 
written, and that, while the Truth is the same in all 
ages, yet, as its adaptation to the different conditions 
and experiences of the human mind necessarily 
changes to meet those differences, it to-day requires 
the same spirit of inspiration to unfold to us what of 
those records are such truths as are needed to be un- 
derstood and practiced by us now. Hence we recog- 
nize no authority that supersedes this revelation of 
the Divine Spirit in our own day, and we further 
acknowledge that the teachings of Jesus possess more 
of authority than other portions of the Bible, because 
He alone, of all whose acts and testimonies are there- 
in recorded, lived a life in perfect accord with Divine 
requirements, and we, therefore, deprecate the substitu- 
tion of His doctrines by the expressions of the Apostles 
who succeeded Him, or of the patriarchs and prophets 
who preceded Him. Such an understanding and inter- 
pretation of what we find recorded in the Bible will 
be found to deepen our trust in God by placing our 
dependence upon Him for guidance and direction, 
and will give to the Bible an added value as we 
advance in religious experiences, opening to us, as it 
will, much that to the mere human intellect seems in- 
congruous and unintelligible ; relieving us from a de- 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 19 

pendence upon the dogmas and doctrines enunciated 
in the darker ages, when much superstition abounded, 
even concerning things in the material world which 
might then have been easily understood but for those 
superstitions, and, at the same time, freeing our re- 
ligious life from so much of form and ceremony 
which has no power to assist the soul in its efforts to 
live in accordance with the revealed will of God. 
With this understanding of them and of their 
value it becomes an individual work in read- 
ing them to ascertain how far that which they read 
may be especially incorporated by them into their re- 
ligious life as meeting the requirements of their con- 
dition ; hence Friends have discarded their formal 
reading in their meetiugs for worship, as well as in 
private, leaving it for each individual to follow the 
dictates of the Divine Spirit as to the right and 
proper time when and what to read, that may cor- 
roborate the impressions given by its revelations. 
But this does not, in my opinion, prevent any mind 
moved by the Divine Spirit from reading a portion of 
them in our meetings for worship, but that, like all 
other public service, must needs be so under the 
control of the Spirit that it will not be undertaken 
until after the reception of an unmistakable word of 
command. So, too, we discard a formal mode of 



20 VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF 

prayer, or what is generally understood as a proper 
opening of a religious meeting by most religious pro- 
fessors, because we regard prayer to be an asking for 
that which the Spirit shows us we stand in need of, 
or which, the Spirit may unfold to us, may be the 
needs of some one, or more of the congregation, and 
hence ought not to be engaged in until there is a di- 
rect impression that it is an immediate requirement 
of the spirit of Truth. When so entered into it 
tends to solemnize an assembly, and often to encourage 
some conditions more than a direct communication 
addressed to the audience, and hence Friends recog- 
nize such a prayer as an important part of a reveren- 
tial public worship. We also discard music as a 
part of our worship, not because we do not recognize 
the harmony of sounds, nor because we believe such a 
harmony is inconsistent with Divine law, but we 
think the use of it as a part of worship tends to 
distract the mind from that introversion of spirit, in 
which alone can our spirits rightly and truly com- 
mune with the Divine Spirit so as to understand 
what it would impart or require, and especially do 
we deprecate the practice of the employment of in- 
dividuals to sing hymns of praise to God because of 
their vocal gifts, and the advantages they have em- 
ployed to cultivate them, when their lives neverthe- 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 21 

less do not evince a dedication to the service of the 
Lord. Though the music thus made may be har- 
monious and in strict accordance with religious 
thought, it can have no further power than to please 
the ear, and promote for the time quiet of the body ; 
but it does not, nor can it, fit the mind for that close 
introversion of spirit needful to perform such a wor- 
ship as Jesus testified of when He declared, " God is 
a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship 
Him in spirit and in truth," which is equivalent to 
saying that it must be done in entire dedication, and 
with such a perfect honesty as will desire no secondary 
medium to interpret the Divine law as needed for the 
individual to follow. 

So, too, we discard the ordinances, as they are 
termed, because under the covenant reestablirhed by 
the coming of Jesus, and under which we now live, 
wheu the law of God ^'is to be written iu the heart, 
and imprinted in the inward part," all those cere- 
monies, which are at the best but typical of that 
which is true and necessary, are no longer needful, if 
they ever had a place, as a religious order in the 
economy of God. We feel that the rite of Baptism 
by water, whether of sprinkling or immersion, can 
have no power to aid in the work either of salvation 
or restoration. While water as an element may and 



22 VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF 

does cleanse the outer man, it has no power to cleanse 
the inner man, or immortal soul, and though used 
formerly as a type of that inward and spiritual cleans- 
ing from the defilement of sin, under the new cove- 
nant it is no longer a necessity, for, as John testified 
concerning the coming of one after him, "mightier 
than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am unworthy to un- 
loose ; he shall baptise you with fire and the Holy 
Ghost." This is such a baptism as, when stripped of its 
figure and adapted to the cleansing and purifying of 
the inner life of the man, we hold to be the essential 
baptism for us to undergo under the Christian dis- 
pensation. This baptism of fire represents that work- 
ing of the Divine spirit which destroys or consumes 
all that is impure in thought and desire within us, 
thus cleansing the source from which all our 
actions spring, purifies the life, and brings it into 
accord with Divine law; and it is represented as fire, 
because there is no known agent that is so thoroughly 
purifying as fire. This operation having been sub- 
mitted to by us, we are brought so near in harmony 
with the Divine, that we may figuratively be said to 
be immersed into and covered by the Holy Ghost or 
Holy Spirit, and thus so completely and thoroughly 
cleansed that the type of ^ water baptism becomes 
entirely unnecessary: nor is it, in our judgment, 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 23 

any warrant for its continuance because Jesus sub- 
mitted to it. He found it as one of the rites among 
the Jews, and submitted to it that he might fulfil all 
their laws and lead them to the higher law or dispen- 
sation, it was his mission to declare and live out 
among them. And John had a clear idea of this, 
when he said, " I must decrease but he shall 
increase." 

So also we do not regard the Lord's supper or 
communion service as having any binding efiect upon 
us in this age, nor does it constitute any necessary 
part of a true worship, or contribute to the needed 
work of the human to obtain salvation, or to realize 
a restoration from the thraldom of sin. It was simply 
a Jewish rite, instituted in commemoration of the 
preservation witnessed by the Israelites while in 
bondage in Egypt, when, in order to induce Pharaoh 
to let them go, the Lord commanded that the angel 
of death should take the first-born in every house, 
except those of the children of Israel ; and Jesus 
being a Jew simply observed the feast kept in mem- 
ory of that event, and took the occasion, as on many 
others, to instruct them in the deeper spiritual 
religion he was endeavoring to institute, as when he 
took the bread, saying, '* Take, eat, this is my body,'' 
and the wine, " Take, drink, this is my blood," it 



24 VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF 

must be very evident to any unbiased, thoughtful 
mind that he was speaking in figures, for that bread 
nor wine was neither his material or spiritual body 
or blood. And so when he sums up the matter he tells 
them, " It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh 
profiteth nothing," clearly, to me, designing 
to call their attention away from these cere- 
monies to a more spiritual perception of his 
mission. And though he said, " as often as ye do 
this do it in memory of me," as this was directed to 
the Jews, among whom only was this feast observed, 
if it has any binding force it must be to that people 
alone, since we as Gentiles have never observed that 
feast, and the ceremony of communion has only come 
down to us as one of the institutions of the Bishop- 
rics, established long after the crucifixion of Jesus, 
and perpetuated by the Romish Church, and incor- 
porated into the Protestant Church by its early 
founders as part of the ceremonies to which they had 
been accustomed before separating from the church 
at Rome. It therefore, from my standpoint of view, 
can have no needed part in that worship which is 
performed in spirit and in truth, under the direction 
and guidance of God's spirit, in that communion 
where no secondary or typical observances or cere- 
monies are required ; but on the contrary, its tendency 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 25 

is to divert the attention from this immediate com- 
munion with God, and divert it toward an observance 
of ceremonies which gradually lead the mind to a 
dependence upon the actions of man in the past, 
instead of a performance of such duties as are 
revealed in the present. 

So,too,Friends reject the doctrine of the resurrection 
of the body, as being inconsistent with natural law and 
entirely unnecessary to contribute to man's spiritual 
happiness. And we understand the teachings of Jesus 
in his interview with the sisters of Lazarus, to call 
their and our attention to an entire different view of 
the nature of Resurrection from that in which they 
had been taught. As when he sought to assure them 
their brother was not dead, but sleeping, and they 
replied, " We know he will rise at the resurrection 
day," he said to them, **I am the resurrection and 
the life; he that believeth on me, though he were 
dead, yet shall he live ; he that liveth and believeth 
on me shall never die." In this expression he could 
have had no possible allusion to the death of the 
body ; for, first, there is no power in a body that 
has become dead, to believe; that is only a function 
of spirit, nor is it a truth that he who liveth and be- 
lieveth in him shall never die a physical or bodily 
death, for there have been many thousands who have 



26 VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF 

most implicitly believed on him, both as to his 
materiality and spirituality, and all have died a 
physical death. But when we apply it in its spiritual 
meaning as relating to that death which is the result 
of transgressing the Divine law by man as a spiritual 
being, we then discover, that though dead in sin or 
alienated from God, the source and sustenance of all 
spiritual life, there is yet power to believe, and when 
that belief becomes so practical as to lead to true 
repentance, then there is witnessed a resurrection 
through the Christ, by whose directions this repent- 
ance was directed and consummated. So, too, with 
those who are living daily and hourly in compliance 
with the immediately revealed will of God, and so 
continue this practical belief in the Christ within 
as to be always obedient to its directions; they shall 
never enter into this spiritual death. 

Again, to complete the happiness of the spirit after 
the death of the body, there is no necessity to re- 
habilitate it again with a sensual body, for its en- 
joyments are not of a sensual character. As every one 
who has seriously reflected upon their sources of en- 
joyment even in this life has readily discovered, its 
higher enjoyments, such as are found to be the accom- 
paniments of a true religious life, are not sensual in 
their nature, but spiritual ; and also those relations 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 27 

which we bear to each other in the form of affection 
for other human beings, which bring us the truest 
and most satisfactory enjoyments, do not depend upon 
the exercise of the merely sensual in our nature, but 
upon a spiritual affinity for each other. So we may 
readily discover that in the economy of God, in order 
to reward us for faithful obedience to His law in the 
present life, and to enhance our happiness in another 
life, there is no need of depending for it upon a re- 
habilitating the spirit into a bodily form such as the 
one in which we now dwell, but in that spirit life to 
which even our imagination cannot give form, as 
that spirit life is one in essence with God, from 
whom it came, so there will be found sources of 
spiritual enjoyment which will render the resurrec- 
tion of the body entirely unnecesary, as in the ordi- 
nary workings of the laws of material things it is im- 
possible. 

It remains for us, then, to present the thought, 
that such a simple form of doctrine, and such a prac- 
tical kind of religion, divested of so much form and 
ceremony, will meet all the real needs of the human 
family, and inspire them to as noble, if not nobler 
actions than do the doctrines and forms they 
antagonize. 

First, then, it leads man to love God instead of fear- 



28 VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF 

ing Him, and hence induces him to obey His commands 
and directions, because he does thus love Him, instead 
of from the fear oi the punishments which would 
follow from disobedience, or rejection of His com- 
mands, thus establishing a closer relation between 
God and man, and inducing a closer watchfulness 
over every thought and act, that nothing be done by 
man to interfere with or mar this clowse relationship. 
Man under this experience realizing more fully his 
finiteness and dependence upon God for all his bless- 
ings, both temporal and spiritual, will, under this 
watchfulness and in this love, find obedience to be 
easy, and not irksome, and if through inadvertence, 
un watchfulness, or from misunderstanding, he com- 
mits error, the sense of loss felt by the cloud resting 
on the spirit will lead to an unreserved acknowledg- 
ment and seeking for forgiveness, that the former 
pleasant and happy relations may be restored. Recog- 
nizing, too, in these relations, that his happiness de- 
pends upon obedience to the immediately revealed 
will, law, or direction of the Divine, as revealed 
through his Christ, he will more closely scan 
every temptation, let it come from what source it 
may, so that he may not be overcome by it. And thus 
his life in his home, in the social and business world, 
or in his religious fellowship, will become more lov- 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 29 

ing and circumspect, and he the better fitted to be an 
instrument of good in the Divine hand, to work a 
change among mankind, to lead them out from all 
forms and ceremonies which stand in the way, or 
tend to divert the mind from this closer companion- 
ship or nearness with God. 

Second, it would broaden our charity for one 
another, we should assume less of superiority because 
of our doctrinal views, we should regard non-essen- 
tials as of less importance, and, actuated by one 
common bond of union, realize to a greater extent than 
the world now does, the universal Fatherhood of God, 
and Brotherhood of Man. 



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P^JCTTi^ 



